Homecoming 2016 began Saturday night with crude jokes and good vibes as Nick Kroll and John Mulaney performed stand up in the UNF Arena.

Most of the jokes were you-had-to-be-there type jokes, with lots of weird facial expressions, animal noises and fake crying.

Kroll and Mulaney both said they liked Jacksonville’s vibe, but their comedy was like night and day. Kroll relied on dirty, crude humor, and Mulaney relied on a boyish wit.

Kroll was first up, and told the story of the first joke he ever wrote. During his freshman year, his college, Georgetown University, had a competition for “funniest act on campus.” He had never done comedy before, but entered because his friends found him “mildly amusing.”

He had one joke: “My girlfriend and my mom are wearing the same perfume, and it’s kind of bugging me out because all of a sudden I’m attracted to my girlfriend.”

The only other material he had was his introduction. He planned to walk out on stage, make a joke about how he thought he would be nervous but now was calm, and then pee his pants.

Flashing back on that first attempt at humor, Kroll experienced only one problem that fateful night.

“I did have enough foresight to think that I might not be able to urinate on command,” Kroll said. His solution was to put a water balloon in his pocket and poke it with a pin when the time was right.

However, he ended up panicking before the show. “So I smoked a little bit of pot, and by a little bit, I mean way more than I should have, and now I’m like super stoned and I show up at the Funniest Act on Campus competition.”

Being a little out of it, he forgot his water balloon at home and had to find a replacement and ended up finding a sandwich bag. But when he got on stage, he mumbled his joke and tried to pop the bag, then couldn’t. Kroll emulated this attempt in present day to our students, and trying to pop the bag looked like he was touching himself. The audience erupted in laughter.

Kroll made more dirty jokes about drugs, homeless people and pooping his pants, and then introduced John Mulaney.

Mulaney walked on stage dancing to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.” He said that Bieber’s song meant a lot to him, because he had a run in with him in 2010 when he was a writer for Saturday Night Live.

On one episode, Bieber was the music guest. It was the night before the show, and Mulaney was walking the halls with his nose in a script. Suddenly, Bieber jumped out and scared Mulaney. Bieber and his friends laughed, and his manager yelled at them to get moving, because Bieber had somewhere to be.

“That to me is truly the beauty of the story, because he had somewhere to be, and he was the busiest pop star in the world, and he took time out of his day to embarrass a depressed man,” said Mulaney.

Mulaney cracked jokes about popular music, zoning out, and college. Recently, he got an email from his alma mater, Georgetown University, asking for donations.

“What kind of coke head relative is college? I’ve never given anything $100,000 and have it ask for more,” Mulaney said.

Mulaney had the most recent issue of Spinnaker Magazine on stage, and stumbled upon some of the police beats to the audience. The roommate of a person featured in a police beat happened to be in the audience. Mulaney called her a hero for putting out the french fry fire in her dorm.

Mulaney also called on a student who said, “It’s pretty alright,” when he introduced the magazine. Foster Langford, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, is a big guy. Mulaney made a joke about his “creepy” appearance, referring to the leather jacket resting on his knee.

“I thought it was goddamn hilarious. I’m a huge John Mulaney fan,” Langford said after the show.

After Mulaney’s set, Kroll came back on stage so that the two could do a Q & A together. The questions ranged from Mulaney and Kroll’s past work to their favorite drugs, drinks and comedy venues.

Their best memory of college was performing in an “improv” group together. They were very intent on having a conversation with the audience, as opposed to a purely question and answer, asking “What about you?” after almost every question.

“I wish there had been more Mulaney, but I’m glad someone asked about his dog. With his boyish charm and wit I would have been too nervous to ask anyway,” said Bella Genta, SG Vice President-elect.

Homecoming 2016 was off to a good start with an arena full of laughter.

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